Never Say Sorry
by HunnyDu2
Summary: It only takes one mistake to break two people apart, and sometimes, it only takes one mistake to bring them back together. Will have a babe happy ending.
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, as much as I would like to keep Ranger, I won't. He, along with all other characters, are property of JKR._

_Summary: An incident causes Steph to re-evaluate her current situation. I promise there will be a happy babe ending

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I smiled as I closed the door to my office and melted into my leather chair, I'd really come to enjoy working in the security business. A lot had changed in the last seven years; I was a whole new person now. I had enlisted, and spent four years as 1/5 of an elite special ops team. When we got out, my team and I opened a security firm; we were morally right but legally grey. We did some contract work for the government too, but only the serious stuff, they have another team they call in for the little stuff. It made me want to laugh, it was almost identical to his past. You can run but you can't hide, right?

I had mountains of paperwork to do, but I didn't mind, unlike most people, I enjoy the paper work. Sometimes it's relaxing to not have to deal people or guns, and just sit back and do the paperwork. Yes, I just called the paperwork relaxing, and I meant it too. I stifled a groan as the phone beeped; the new secretary had been bugging me every five minutes for something. I pressed the button for speakerphone waiting to hear what she wanted now.

"There's a man named…uhh," I could hear her asking him quietly. "He says his name is Tank."

"Send him in," I said, while making sure my 'blank face' was firmly in place. I wasn't exactly hiding my location, but he would have had to have been looking to find me. He looked the same as ever, tall, black and muscular. I looked at him, waiting for him to explain why he was here. He ran a hand over his head.

"He's gone. He was declared MIA months ago, and the government has stopped all search efforts. He was in hostile territory; they don't think he could have made it this long. We can't…proceed with anything legally, he had you on file as his proxy and executor." No, no, no…he's not supposed to be _gone._ Away, he was supposed to be far, far away from me, but not gone. Gone was forever, with no second chances. But, he can't be gone, I would have felt it if he were gone. I took a deep breath to focus myself. I picked up my cell and punched in a number I had memorized three years ago.

I spent the next fifteen minutes convincing the colonel that, yes, it was absolutely imperative that my team head off to the middle of nowhere to find a man that he thought was dead. The whole time Tank was staring at me, no doubt trying to figure out my connection to the colonel. I picked up my phone and sent a message to my team to meet me in my office with their packs before turning to Tank.

"Are you going to want in on this?" I asked.

"In on it? I don't know what's going on. Why were you just talking to the colonel like you knew him, and why is he handing out classified information to you?"

"A lot can change in seven years Tank, and now isn't the time to explain all of it, so here's what you need to know. I just paged the other four members of my team to this office. The five of us make up the most elite task force the government has." I saw his eyes widen and take in the meaning. "That's right, we're the ones they call when they don't want to give your team the job. We're going to go to his last known coordinates, and we are going to find him, because he. Is. Not. Dead. Now, my question is, are you going to want in on it?"

"Don't you think the government's done what they could?" I had never heard Tank this resigned, it was disheartening. I started clearing the paperwork off my desk, and grabbed my pack from the corner.

"No, Tank, I don't think they've done everything they could," I snapped, as I grabbed ammo from the cabinet and put it in my bag. "If they had, they would have called me, and my team would have already been there!" I continued layering the essentials into my pack. I turned to ask Tank, again, if he was going, but my office door opening stopped me.

Fuck. The last person in the world I wanted to see right now was Dan, but here he was, in my office. Where the hell was my secretary, and why didn't she page me before letting him into my office, damn it. He took one look at my pack and the man standing in my office and he went bullshit. I had expected no less once he saw Tank.

"Where the fuck are you going? Running off to _him_ again! He is scum! Why can't you see that? He's like the dog shit you scrape off your shoe. He is nothing, he doesn't deserve to live. Fuck, he should be sent to the pits of hell just for existing. No, you aren't going to him, not this time. I won't let you." I could feel the rage building in me, collecting, waiting for me to let it out. I glanced at the ring on my finger and moved so I was in front of him looking him in the eye. Without warning my fist flew into his face, breaking his nose. I ignored the blood, and pulled the ring off my finger, dropping it at his feet.

"Don't you ever, ever, insult him in front of me," I said, my voice cold. "And don't think for one second, that you can stop me, because I will drop you in a heartbeat if you try."

"He fucked you over, he almost got you killed! Are you really going to choose him over me?" I gave him a sad smile.

"I just did." I said it quietly, and it held none of the anger I was feeling, but it seemed deafening. If looks could kill, I'd be dead. He turned and pushed his way out the door, and only then did I see the other four members of my team standing in the door. I waved them in and turned back to Tank, who was staring at me with an odd look on his face. "Are you going?" I asked him with a sigh, my voice sounding tired. He nodded. I knew the team wouldn't be thrilled having someone they didn't know and trust on the team, but he would be useful.

"What was that all about?" Bekka asked, and I knew she was referring to my fight with Dan. She was not only part of my team, but she was my best friend and I think she was more concerned about me than the mission.

"We're headed into the jungle, about 200 miles Southwest of Coari." I looked at her and continued. "We're going to save Ranger."


	2. Chapter 2

_Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, as much as I would like to keep Ranger, I won't. He, along with all other characters, are property of JKR._

_A/N: Sorry it's been so long, but this one may have slow updating for a little while, because I want to finish up Shattered Images. I'll try to post one chapter of this for every two of SI. I will try to post one more for this one before returning to SI though.

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"What?" Bekka screeched at me. "I think I must have misunderstood you, because, it sounded like you just said we were going to save Ranger." I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. My team knew all about why I had left Trenton, and were wearing a range of expressions on their faces.

"You know me," I said to them quietly, "and you know that I wouldn't leave him out there even if I could." I waited for the arguments I was expecting but they didn't come. I asked my secretary to take Tank to the vault so he could get everything he would need to take with him while I explained what was going on to my team.

"I talked to the colonel, we have a find and rescue mission. Target is Ricardo Carlos Manoso. He left on a government mission," I glanced at the quick notes I had scribbled while I was on the phone with the colonel, "Approximately nine months ago. Four months ago he was declared MIA. His last known location is in the Amazon about 200 miles Southwest of Coari. We're the last string, if we don't retrieve him, he'll be left for dead." I watched as they all nodded, even though a couple of them didn't like it.

"Before we go, there's something you need to know. The colonel didn't ask us to do this, I'm asking you. The government has already given up on him. I know you all know that I have a rocky past with Ranger, but the fact is I will always love him. That's why I'm going, I'm asking you to help me, but I don't want anyone to feel obligated. I'll understand if you don't want to go. As far as Tank is concerned, I know you may have a hard time trusting him, but he has a right to be there, and even after everything I still trust him with my life." I watched as my team looked around, reading everyone else's eyes and expressions. Finally Eve spoke.

"We'll go Steph, not because we're your team, but because we're your friends and can respect that this is what you want. Don't think it means we've forgotten why you left Trenton." Javier looked at me, and he was the only one whose face was hard as stone. He was my self-appointed big brother, and despite the closeness of my team, I always felt there was a lot we didn't know about him. It almost felt like he knew more about me than I did too. Annoying sometimes, but I loved him anyway.

"If he hurts you again, I'll kill him myself." I'm pretty sure it was Javier, but I could tell, because it hadn't been meant for me to hear. I shook my head, if we managed to save him _I _would be the only one allowed to kill him.

"So, what exactly is the situation?" I glanced over my scribbles again, and summarized the situation in my mind before speaking.

"Nine months ago he was called in to do a job. They wouldn't let him bring his own team, the government wanted to piece this one together themselves so they would have exactly who they wanted. Their objective was to find and take down a group of gunrunners, and to find and recover their weapons stash. The group in question distributes to New York, Miami, Seattle, LA, Chicago as well as multiple places in Mexico and Cuba. Somehow Ranger got separated from his team. The team was extracted and it was considered a failed mission, while Ranger was reported MIA. They already considered him lost, but when I talked to the Colonel I told him I was going in. After some incredibly persuasive language he agreed to send us in officially. He could only approve half our normal salary right now, but he'll work on getting the rest while we're gone."

"Are you _sure_ this is just an extraction? We're not going to have to fix their failure right?" Ray spoke for the first time. He was the type of guy who would just go with the flow wherever it may take him, but he liked to know exactly where that was.

"This is an extraction only. From the way the colonel was talking we'll probably be contacted soon to finish it, but that will be a separate job, and probably not for a least a few more months." I sat at my desk and opened my laptop and after looking over the status report of the jet I sighed. It wouldn't be operable for at least twenty-four hours. They had been working on that jet for a week, it should be fine by now. Gritting my teeth I flipped open my phone and dialed the colonel again. A full day was too long to wait, I would have to get someone to fly us in.

Needless to say, the colonel was not happy, but we would have our jet. Not as soon as I wanted it, but sooner than ours could be ready. As I looked up from my paper I noticed that Tank was back, and he was talking to Javier. Neither of them looked very happy, but they didn't look mad at each other. It wasn't perfect but it was a start. I stood and walked over to them, thinking about what was going on.

"Have you checked-in yet?" I asked Tank as I came up behind him. He didn't turn, so I moved around to his side next to Javi.

"No." It was a crisp reply, but as soon as it came out he seemed to soften a little. "I'm just not sure what I'm going to tell Lester and Bobby." As soon as the words left his mouth my mind started forming ideas that I knew were bad ones. God, my team was going to hate me.

"They have eight hours to get here. Our plane leaves at exactly eighteen hundred hours, regardless of who is or isn't on it." He smiled a little and gave a nod before moving to the corner and pulling out his cell phone. Javier turned to me.

"The others aren't going to be happy about that many new people going. Especially ones that their hearts don't want to trust," he said, giving me a pointed look.

"It wasn't their fault." I replied evenly, even knowing that it was true my voice wavered a little, so I redirected the conversation before it became uncomfortable. "What about you? How do you feel about working with three unknowns?" His eyes flicked to Tank then back to me.

"They aren't unknown. I've worked with them before."


	3. Chapter 3

_Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, as much as I would like to keep Ranger, I won't. He, along with all other characters, are property of JKR._

_A/N: Ok, last chapter for a few days, because I'm going back to working on SI.

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"Excuse me?" I said, loud enough to quiet the entire room. "When the hell was this? Why the hell didn't you tell me? Was this after we met?" I glared at him as everyone pretended not to be listening despite the complete silence.

"It was a year before I met you. It wasn't a government mission because I obviously wasn't trained yet. My fathers company hired them to do a job, and when their fifth man –Hal I believe- got sick, I filled in last minute. By then I had already learned to use a gun, and the job wasn't that difficult, just security. It's not that big of a deal." I shook my head, giving him a look that said he clearly just didn't get it.

"It really is." I turned and walked to the door, detouring past Tank, who was still holding his phone, and pausing right in front of him.

"Are they coming?" It was barely more than a whisper but I was pretty sure everyone in the room heard it. He wasn't answering me, and I was getting ready to walk away. I just needed to get out of there. I took a deep breath and just as I started forward he spoke.

"Affirmative, they should be here by fourteen-hundred hours." I nodded and kept walking until I had reached the gym. After some debate I decided that the treadmill would be the most mindless. I started at a walk, but couldn't take going that slow and switched it to a jog, my mind overworked with memories of the past.

I was about to head into the jungle to save a man who was willing to let me die. Sure, I sort of gave him permission, but he just, went. And he didn't look back. And now I was going to risk not only my life, but the lives of my friends to save him. I'd never forgive myself if any of them died.

_Flashhback_

_Ranger and his men had spent the last three months hunting down a guy named Anton Savaro. He was wanted by no less than fourteen countries, and banned from just as many. Among his numerous crimes were murder, rape, distribution of class A and B drugs, gun running, grand theft auto, arson, and the list just goes on. The worst part had been the knowledge that someone like that could stay in the country and not be found. Well, now he was found._

_It had been entirely accidental of course. Ranger had taken the night off and we were having a nice dinner at Rossini's. I excused myself to go to the Lady's Room only to have someone grab me from behind and press a knife to my throat. _

"_What do you want?" I asked, making the knife dig into my throat as I spoke._

"_I was having a nice client dinner until you and you date came in and threatened my partner's safety." What? We hadn't threatened anyone. "You see, my partner is Anton Savaro." My heart stopped and my shoulders tightened. Where was Ranger? "I had to take you, you see, to make sure that he would have time to get out. He should be out shortly." Seconds later a man who looked absolutely nothing like the Antonio Savaro in the picture I'd seen emerged from a door I hadn't even seen. _

_As he moved us toward the door, the pressure from the knife eased up so that I couldn't even feel it. He made sure I knew it was there, but nothing more. Once we reached the employee parking lot Savaro wasted no time trying to get into one of the cars. As I watched him struggle to get the door open I couldn't help but roll my eyes despite my situation. This was the mighty crime lord? He couldn't even break into a car._

_I grimaced as the man holding me whipped around at a noise coming from behind him. Ranger stood there gun aimed over my shoulder at the man's head. I don't know what he heard, but faster than I'd ever see Ranger's head whipped to where Savaro was standing. Savaro saw him and abandoned his attempt on the car and started running down the dirt road that would eventually lead to an old power plant in the middle of the woods. Ranger looked at me, and I knew, he was going to go after Savaro and leave me here with this nutcase. Because he had to, because Savaro was that dangerous. I nodded as much as the knife would allow, and he was gone. It felt like we had been staring at each other for hours but it couldn't have even been seconds, because Ranger was only about twenty feet behind the guy. I felt the knife leave my throat, and a painful strike to my head before the world faded into black_

_End Flashback_

Just thinking about it I could feel the knife at my throat again, and that horrible, heart-broken, panicked throb that I had felt when he had turned. Now, I could understand why he had done it. I had been through enough, learned enough, and seen enough to know that when you were on a mission you did what had to be done, and that was that. I knew now why he had said his life didn't lend itself to relationships. Now I knew, but then I didn't, and it had been one long hard painful lesson.

I could almost appreciate what had happened. If it hadn't I wouldn't be who I am today, and honestly, I like who I am. I have a job that I'm good at and that I absolutely love, better friends than I could ever dream of, and a financial security that I had never known. But there was always that nagging voice that would pop in once an a while to say _what if?_ Not all the scenarios I came up with were better, not all were worse, but they were all different. I was different.

By the time I was conscious again Ranger had come back and shot the guy who had taken me. He survived, but got a lovely life-time sentence due to a rap sheet almost as long Savaro's. Ranger had caught Savaro and called to have a team pick him up ASAP. As soon as it was safe to leave Savaro, Ranger came back to find me. I was tied to the fence and unconscious, but otherwise unharmed. The guy had left me there, to go get a vehicle, and by unlucky circumstances, returned at the same time as Ranger. At least, that's what he tells me.

_Flashback_

_I rubbed the back of my head as I sat up, wondering if I had a concussion. Ranger was standing over me looking concerned. I guess if he was that concerned he shouldn't have left me there._

"_Lo siento(1)__ babe, I'm so sorry." He almost sounded like he meant it to. I couldn't bring myself to reply, caught between wanting to understand why he'd done it, and wanting to hate his guts. "Tuve para hacerlo, por favor entiende babe,_ _Yo no tuve una elección(2)__."_

"_I don't speak Spanish, Ranger." I told him as the paramedic checked me over, and he just gave me a sad smile, probably knowing my true thoughts. He gave me a ride home and checked the apartment, all in silence. I made no move to acknowledge him, and he headed to the door. He paused just before leaving._

"_Perdóneme, por favor,_ _Perdóneme(__3)__." It was whispered so softly I barely heard it, and I knew he didn't think I had. I couldn't help but wonder what it meant as I watched him walk out the door._

_End Flashback_

I shook my head to clear my thoughts as I stepped off the treadmill. I was about to head into the jungle to save a man I hadn't seen in years. A man who –with his last words to me- begged forgiveness. I knew that he meant it too, but I had never had the courage to return and tell him that. I had to save him, because if he died not knowing that I forgave him, I would never forgive myself.

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(1)Lo siento- I'm sorry 

(2)Tuve para hacerlo, por favor entiende babe, Yo no tuve una elección- I had to do it, please understand babe, I had no choice.

(3)Perdóneme, por favor, Perdóneme- Forgive me, please, forgive me.


	4. Chapter 4

_Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, as much as I would like to keep Ranger, I won't. He, along with all other characters, are property of JKR._

_A/N: Here's Chapter Four, I know it's short, but I do plan on writing Chapter Five before going back to SI. Please Review!_

I stepped out of the shower and eyed the clothes I had laid out. Mission clothes had always been a big debate among my team, none of us agreeing on what the best to wear was. Eve preferred to wear a tight pair of pants and a T-shirt. _It moves with me_, she had said, _I don't have to worry about getting caught on anything. _I stared blankly at my clothes as I replayed Ray's response in my head. _Yes, but my cargos leave extra storage room for things I can't fit in my pack. Remember that when you're out of ammo and I still have two loaded guns._ I smiled; people just meeting Ray thought he was shy. Believe me, he wasn't. Javier had to be the one to make things difficult. _Well I think _both_ of you are crazy. We do most of our work in the _jungle_ and it's HOT. _I_ like my shorts. _His shorts were a pain; he was _always_ getting scraped to hell. Sometimes it was by poisonous thorns which he then had to be treated for. He was lucky there were two medics on our team. Bekka was easy, she'd wear whatever as long as it blended into the surroundings. _For god's sake, they're just clothes!_ had been her answer.

I glanced at _my_ clothes and smiled. The best of all four and I was finally getting to try them for the first time. They were a green camo, so they'd blend in perfectly in the jungle. They were form fitting, but had large cargo pockets on the legs. The best feature however, was perfect for hot climates. The lower thigh was circled in a zipper so I could turn them into shorts at will. I'd still have on the big, hot boots. But hey, I'd have shorts! I pulled them on and headed for the conference room, where, to my surprise, Bobby and Lester were already sitting. That had been fast. Tank, of course, was with them, but no one from my team was in sight.

I stood awkwardly in the door. Once upon a time I would have just walked in and sat. Now, I was caught between wanting to talk to them and not wanting to intrude, the knowledge that I was no longer one of them heavy in my chest. Tank looked up and caught my eye, nodding his head at a chair. I walked in and sat, getting a good look at Bobby and Les for the first time. They were older, no doubt, but they were the same. It almost hurt, that I was so different and they weren't. But then, I guess they didn't _want_ to be different. For the first time Bobby looked at me.

"Why are you even going to look for him?" My eyes widened, so shocked that I couldn't reply. Didn't they understand? "You hate him, remember?" The words ripped a hole through my heart and were only made worse by the fact that I _had_ said that.

"That was a long time ago, and I never, _never_, hated him. I was…naïve. I didn't understand." I snapped my mouth shut, not knowing what I wanted to say, and not liking that I was pouring my heart out.

"Didn't understand what? How he loved you? How it killed him to watch you leave like that? How he actually saw a therapist because he was so torn up about that night?" My face remained the same, but my mind was turning. He had seen a therapist? He felt that bad? And it was my fault. I had told him I hated him and left. How would I have felt? I felt the tears in the corner of my eyes, and I knew I had to get out of that room. I walked to the door, and stood facing it, leaving my back to them so they couldn't see the tear tracks on my face.

"I couldn't understand how the man I loved with my whole heart and soul could leave me there, with a man holding a knife to my throat. I didn't understand what he meant, when he said his life didn't lend itself to relationships. Most importantly, I didn't understand that he loved me back." I walked out the door and down the hallway before their carrying voices could stop me.

Down in my office my team sat around my small conference table with their pack behind them. The faces varied, but the meaning was clear. They all thought I was crazy. Except Javier.

"_Three _new members. _Three._ You want us to work with people we don't trust?" I could not take god knows how long of this animosity between the two teams.

"Listen up, and listen well." I said, using my 'boss' tone. Most of the time I tried to run it like a partnership, but fact was fact, and the fact was that I was the boss. I just hadn't realized Lester had followed me, and was standing just behind me. "They are all good men, and I trust them all with my life. I'm not saying you have to like them, but you should respect them, and you damn well better treat them like a part of this team. I'm not asking any of you to partner with them. I'll partner with one of them and you partner amongst yourselves."

"How can you expect us to treat them like team?" I could feel my eyes narrowing, and I'm pretty sure my blood was boiling. I was glad I was still in the door, because once again I was planning on walking out. This time in anger instead of sadness.

"I have two questions I want you to think about. One. What if I was trapped out in the jungle, left for dead. Wouldn't you want in on the rescue? And two. Do you remember what happened in Sumatra?" I turned to walk out the door only to run smack into Lester, who moved out of my way, but followed me down the hall.

"Lester." I said stupidly, not knowing what else to say.

"What happened in Sumatra?"

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	5. Chapter 5

_Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, as much as I would like to keep Ranger, I won't. He, along with all other characters, are property of JKR.

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I blinked. I didn't really talk about Sumatra, none of us did. If it had been anyone other than Lester asking, I probably wouldn't have answered, but he had always sort of been my best friend among the Merry Men. He was the one who helped me adjust to RangeMan in a way that Ranger couldn't have, if only because of his two word sentences. Plus, a part of me felt like I owed it to him.

"A little over a year ago we were doing a simple mission in Sumatra. Find the man, extract the man, and bring him back here. He was supposed to be alone with three, four guards. What we found was a gathering of some major international players with as many armed guards as they could find. It didn't work out well for us. Orders were to proceed with the extraction of our original target, Ricardo Lorenzo, along with two others. Joe Cartini and Steven Perez, two of the internationally most wanted men in decades. They'd been after these guys for years. The suit in charge made it clear. If we left without those men, we would lose our security clearances, and the only jobs we'd be working for the next thirty years would be Burger King."

I waited for him to thrown in some kind of question, but he seemed content to let me finish first. It occurred to me that it had been a classified mission, but I think his security clearance is the same as mine. I wasn't sure, so I settled for pulling him into the conference room.

"We held back, took the time to come up with a new plan, we knew we couldn't screw up. We moved in on the building, took our positions. Plan was to try and get the three we needed leaving or going to the bathroom. Seems quite clichéd now that I think about it, actually."

"Whatever works," he said with a slight grin, like he was doing his best not to laugh.

"That was the problem, it didn't work. We got Lorenzo no problem, he come out with two bodyguards, and he was in our possession quicker than a blink. We waited another four hours; people were coming out, but not ones we were waiting for. Our estimates placed about thirty men and their bodyguards. As far as we could tell, about ten had left. Another four hours went by with no entries or exits, so we started to think we had miscalculated."

"You got impatient." He wanted to call it impatient, fine. Me, I called it being fucked by the suits.

"I sort of wanted to wait another hour or two, but honestly, I didn't think we would see anything. I agreed to move in. We cleared the place, no one. We couldn't figure it out, finally Javier found a secret door, one million stairs later and we had no less than a hundred and fifty armed guards along with thirty or so of their bosses. They weren't exactly thrilled to see us. It was a disaster. We really don't have time to get into all the details right now, but Javier ended up in the hands of the bad guys, while we made it out. We had two choices. Either go after the two men we were supposed to be retrieving, or go rescue Javier. We went after our target."

"How did he make it out?" If he hadn't already met Javier I'd whack him, but since he knew Javier was alive, it was a valid question.

"Eve apparently notified our contact while we were chasing after them. I didn't even know she'd broken radio silence until we'd secured Cartini and Perez and the extraction team had reached Javier. I never heard too much about the extraction team. I wondered for a while if it was your team. We're not supposed to fuck up, ever. I was shocked as hell they even sent a team. I mean, who do you send to save your last chance? Eve can be quite persuasive though." I grinned, that was the first time I'd talked about Sumatra to anyone who wasn't on my team, it kind of felt good. Granted, I'd omitted a few parts, but still.

"It wasn't us, but I know who it was. The only other team the government considered to be on our level apart from your team. Marcus Deline heads it. I never knew it was your team, never even got names from him." Lester answered me, shaking his head and looking confused.

"It was classified information."

"I could tell by the way you were spilling your guts in the hallway just now."

I looked down at the floor, not knowing what to say. For the first time in years, I was truly afraid. I was terrified that we wouldn't find Ranger, and scared that we would. I didn't know what I would do if anyone on my team was hurt or worse killed. And I didn't know what any of it was going to mean for me and my life.

"What's your security clearance anyway?"

"Same as yours, but I'm thinking you could probably get access to shit I couldn't." I rose my eyebrows.

"Why is that?" He laughed at me. The nerve!

"From what Tank tells me you've got the general wrapped around your pretty little finger." I made sure he got an appropriate glare before I grinned a little.

"Just what are you implying Lester?"

Before he could answer, the door swung open to reveal a not so happy looking Bobby. I couldn't tell if the scowl was directed at me or not, but it seemed best to just ignore it.

"We need to talk to you Lester," he said, not bothering to glance in my direction. Apparently, Bobby was not very happy to see me. I couldn't really blame him, but I could not be dealing with some macho bullshit in the middle of the Amazon. Not on top of all the wretched bugs they've got there.

"I'll be in my office," I told Lester as I walked over to the door and slid past Bobby.

"Christ man," I heard Lester not quite shout as I walked away, "At least she let us know, she didn't have to."

I thought about pausing to listen, but I wasn't sure I wanted to hear it. I still had to go into the jungle and uncertain conditions with these men. I really didn't want to start wondering if I could still trust them with my life.

By the time, I was back in my office it was sixteen hundred hours. I felt like I was back in Trenton, sitting in the bail bonds office, wondering how in the hell I was going to get my man. Because despite the feeling in my gut telling me he was still alive, I felt like I was out of my league. I hadn't felt that way in years.

When I finally looked up from my palms, Lester was leaning against my doorframe. He didn't say anything, or acknowledge the fact that I had finally seen him. I waited a few more minutes – well, it felt like minutes anyway – before it because uncomfortable silence.

"Um…" He smiled, that was a little better.

"Partners."

"What?" I asked, my eyebrows wrinkling, what kind of statement was that.

"Partners?" He repeated, but I shouldn't really use repeated, it had NOT sounded like a question the first time. I opened my mouth, closed it, and still hadn't started to speak.

"It's not a difficult question, either you trust me or you don't." He didn't sound quite so happy this time. It was a stupid statement. Of course I trusted him, if I didn't he wouldn't be standing in my office right now.

"Of course I trust you Lester, I always did, and you know that." I took a deep breath. "I just figured I was going to have to work a little harder than that to get one of you to partner with me."

"Steph…"

"No Lester, it's true, just look at Bobby. But, he's not really wrong either. Ranger tried for a long time to tell me his life didn't lend itself to relationships, and I just didn't want to hear it. Didn't try to understand why. Then I caused exactly what he had been trying to prevent."

"That doesn't mean…" This was why I liked Lester, he always tried to make things better.

"Yeah, it does. Ranger was doing his job. Then I hurt him. And that was my fault. For not listening, not caring, and for running away. Not everything is my fault, but some of it was, and I take responsibility for that."

"Ranger knew what he was getting himself into the day he met you. You're the only person I've ever seen him take to like that."

I shook my head, he didn't understand where he was coming from. I wasn't referring to anything that had happened while I was there. It was the leaving, and the time after I'd left that was the problem.

"I don't know what caused it Lester, I wasn't there, but I know what the reports said, and I know that there was nothing to explain why it had happened. The only thing that leaves me with is that he got hurt because he was distracted."

"What are you talking about, Steph?" It still sounded foreign when he called me Steph. I don't know what I expected him to call me, after all, it had been seven years since he'd seen me, but it just didn't sound right. I shook my head to clear my thoughts.

"The takedown, two and a half weeks after I left. He was shot, when the guy shouldn't have even been able to see him. Based on what I read, If Ranger had been in position properly, he would have had a good one-minute window with a clear shot, where that guy wouldn't have even been able to see him. So, that leads me to believe his mind was on something else, and he wasn't as focused as he should have been."

I knew this conversation had to end fast. I hated talking about my feelings, and we were starting to tread dangerously thin waters. He looked like he was going to say something, and I didn't want to have to answer any more questions.

"Enough of the past though, our plane leaves in 45 minutes. Did you have time to get everything you needed before you left Trenton?"

"Well, my packs a little lighter than usual, but I'm pretty sure I'll survive." He said it lightly, and I could tell by his chuckle that he was kidding, but I couldn't help but frown a little.

"What are you short?" He snickered.

"Well, I never considered myself short, but there are people taller than me out there."

And this was why Lester drove me crazy. Everything was a joke, ha bloody ha. I could not take losing someone on this mission. It wouldn't be good for me, it wouldn't be good for my team, and it sure as shit wouldn't be good for the unlucky dead person.

"I'm serious Lester, what don't you have that you normally do?"

"Hair." My eyes started to narrow, despite the fact the I wanted to comment that he looked good bald. "Ok, ok. A couple of guns and some ammo. Nothing critical, I've still got the recommended amount."

I raised an eyebrow. We both knew that the amount of firepower the colonel suggested was a joke. Unless we were going into the jungle to fight off kitty cats. I hesitated for a second, but knew I had to ask.

"What about Bobby?" He smiled, or grimaced, I'm not sure which.

"He definitely over-packed his bag, but we won't get into that." I wanted to question him, but the way he said it told me that I didn't want to know the answer.

"Come on, I'll take you to the vault, Tank was there earlier." He smiled.

"Thanks Bombshell." I caught myself looking up in surprise.

Everything was all wrong, I had a horrible feeling in my gut, and the sinking feeling that someone wasn't making it out alive. But maybe, maybe eventually it would all work out.

It always did, just not necessarily the way I wanted it to.


End file.
